The Struggle is Real

Has anyone written an essay about the persistence of poverty, and the struggle against it, continues to be compelling in literature over the last two centuries? From Charles Dickens to Suzanne Collins, we continue to gobble up literature that shows all classes struggling, even the upper classes treading water to keep up appearances. I love literature that moves beyond the coin to show other social monsters that we fight—Frankenstein, for instance, or Fahrenheit 451 or The Handmaid’s Tale or  The Gate to Women’s Country. But the struggle for survival is so pervasive, and so tenuous, that when we encounter a tale in which it no longer exists, we call it science fiction (and thank you, Gene Roddenberry). 

Anyway, the local cinema is showing The Hunger Games collection, one movie each night over the holiday weekend, and of course Geo and I are attending.